Our new/old display cabinet

Last year Martin and I spent a couple of days in Cornwall with friends, Mike and Ann. Cornwall is absolutely beautiful. With its rolling hills, steep slopes, cliffs and enough rain to keep it green. There are pretty stone walls in the neighborhoods with flowers growing out of them and wild onion on the side of the roads. Its also the home of the Cornish pasty, one of my favorite foods here, Tintagle and Boscastle. Tintagle is reputedly where King Aurthur was conceived even though the ruins dating is not consistent. But they have recently found ruins which date back to an earlier time. The village of Boscastle had a horrible flood in 2004. I was in England at the time visiting Martin and remember it well. The village is small and everyone flooded. I watched on BBC as the Vicar tried to be there for everyone, coordinating the rescues and the rebuilding. Prince Charles is Duke of Cornwall and I watched as he arrived too. In 2006, when I moved here, it was important for me to visit there. I wanted to see their progress after the flood. It gave me hope to see this bustling village post flooding, having just lived through Katrina. I love to listen to the Cornish speak, they have a wonderful accent, but it makes you want to ask "huh?" before they've finished a sentence. And they believe that once you've driven over the border into Cornwall, you've left England. Its very close to where we live, right over the River Tamar from Plymouth. Its a joy being there, it always seems to be warmer and the sky bluer.

While there, Anne gave us a pretty pine wall cabinet with glass shelves and doors. It was a little scratched up and needed a good cleaning since it had been stored, but over all in very good shape. Its quite pretty too. I got to work taking it apart a couple of months back so that I could refinish it once the weather was warmer and dryer. The glass shelves were stuck in the storage position and were extremely difficult to take out. In the end one shelf had to be broken in order to get the remaining ones out. Still, there are 6 shelves left, each with a 2.5 to 3 inch space for displaying things. With the one shelf missing I will have one space with 5 to 6 inches for tall items, I consider this is a plus.

This past Saturday the weather was perfect for outside work. My plan was to sand the whole piece that weekend. By Saturday tea time I was able to sand off the finish on the shelf itself and most of one door. I put everything away with hopes of finishing up the following day. As is with the English weather, on Sunday it snowed. Today its haling, again no outside working. Maybe this coming weekend I'll have better luck. The forecast is for sunny in the morning, rain in the afternoon and night. Still, I got a good bit completed. It looks nice in the raw, pine always looks good without stain. So I'm thinking that I will put on a few coats of varnish and call it finished. It'll match our pine wardrobe since it has no stain either. I picked up a packet of fine sanding paper and I'm hoping its fine enough to use between coats of varnish for an extra smooth finish. I can't wait until its completed then I can put it up on our sitting room wall. My mother-in-law can't wait until its finished too, then she can get it out of her living room!

gi